Controversies in citizenship education in Israel: The role of political scientists

The 1990s heralded significant changes in Western democratic countries following large-scale immigration and globalization, which created multicultural societies. These countries suffer from severe polarization and crumbling cohesiveness, which call for rebuilding a common identity that embraces differing opinions, which also indicates an urgent need for civic education. Following growing polarization in the 1980s, civics in Israel has been advanced as a platform for socializing pupils toward a common civic identity. Despite this goal, both the content and pedagogical framework for teaching civics have been the focal point of fierce public debate between the liberal and conservative “camps", as a deep controversy rages in Israel as to the meaning of the ‘Jewish’ and ‘democratic’ components in the state’s identity. The leaders of both "camps" are political scientists, accompanied by a small group of other scholars from this community, all of who are deeply and visibly involved in this debate, thereby, impacting both the short-term and long-term future of social cohesiveness in Israel. This arena enables political scientists, to remain out of the limelight of the general public debate about the identity of the state, while at the same time engaging heavily in its shaping. A qualitative analysis of focusing events between the years 1995-2016, which serve as focal milestones in the public debate regarding civics, demonstrates the various means of involvement employed by political scientists, all resting on adherence to scientific disciplinary knowledge.